WEBVTT
and once you vote you can't
change your vote..." that is
pretty much common
knowlege...but Des Moines police
are looking into three
individuals believed to have
tried to vote absentee in more
than one location... triggering
the security system in place to
catch these types of votin
irregularities...tha t no one
can vote more than once.
20:13-"when you vote you get a
bar scan, and we scan it into
the system...we don't know how
you vote, we don't care how you
vote...but we scan it in a
then if you try to go to a
second, like a satellite
location...then we try to scan
it in, it will say you have
already voted.
A Loyola University Chicago
study found just 31 cases of
impersonation fraud out of 1
billion votes cast in elections
between 2000 and 2014. but it
does happen...
there have been more cases
involving forged or fraudulant
absentee ballots because for one
thing it doesn't occur at the
polling place.
The polk county auditor tells
KCCI he can't think of a time
when catching someone voting
twice got to the level of
approaching the police
before...he says in the past
these situations sometimes turn
out to be an honest mistake...

With less than two weeks away from the 2016 presidential election, the Des Moines Police Department has reported three cases of voter fraud.

According to police reports, one person was charged with first-degree election misconduct, and two others were referred to police.

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All three Des Moines residents are accused of attempting to vote twice by sending absentee ballots in more than one location, triggering the security system in place to catch the voting irregularity.

"You can only vote once, and once you vote, you can’t change your vote," said Jamie Fitzgerald, Polk County auditor. "When you vote, you get a bar scan, and we scan it into the system. We don’t know how you vote. We don’t care how you vote. But we can scan it in, and then if you try to go to a second (place), like a satellite location, then we try to scan it in. It will say you have already voted."

A Loyola University Chicago study found 31 cases of impersonation fraud out of 1 billion votes cast in elections between 2000 and 2014.

"There have been more cases involving forged or fraudulent absentee ballots because, for one thing, it doesn’t occur at the polling place," said Columbia University professor Richard Briffault.

The Polk County auditor told KCCI that he couldn’t remember a situation where a person tried to vote twice before escalating to law enforcement intervention.

In the past, Fitzgerald said, and in most cases, it turns out to be an honest mistake.

One of the suspects, according to the police report, is a 99-year-old who voted by mail on Oct. 3 and sent in an absentee ballot three weeks later.

Another suspect, a woman in her mid-50s, admitted to intentionally trying to vote twice, investigators said.

With questions surrounding election security, what steps are being taken to ensure that early voting is not compromised?

KCCI took an in-depth look at the voting process in Iowa, following volunteers from the Marshall County Auditor’s Office, who were collecting absentee ballots at the Veterans Home in Marshalltown, all the way to the ballot box.

Volunteers from both political parties took over five hours to collect 33 absentee ballots. They then drive the ballots to the county courthouse and to the auditor’s office. The ballots then sit 12 more days in a secure room with other absentee votes.

"We still have a lot out," said Deanne Raymond, Marshall County auditor. "You had about 6,000 requests, and you think you have about 5,000 right here."

Early voters are also voting in the courthouse rotunda.

About 10,000 of the 23,000 or so voters in Marshall County voted before Election Day in 2012, meaning over 40 percent of the ballots had to be kept secure in the weeks before they could be counted.

"We put a Band-Aid seal on the door, so that way, we can see if it’s been tampered with at all," Raymond said.

This is Marshall County’s sixth election in the past year and a half, so security techniques are well versed.

"The whole courthouse is locked, and of course, there are other little security things," Raymond said. "Can’t tell you all of our secrets."

The commissioner of elections said her voting equipment can’t be targeted by outside computer hackers.

"All of our equipment is standalone, not Wi-Fi-based," Raymond said. "They would physically need to come to Marshalltown and visit."

Despite presidential contenders claiming that the election is "rigged," local controllers are confident in the security.

"There are worries a cyberattack could influence voting results," Raymond said. "We’re not worried as to how we handle things. We are already looking at security, no matter if someone’s talking about it or not."